


Begin Again

by plastromeme



Category: gen:LOCK (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, inspired by a best friend's art and also his prompt as well, other characters as well but these are the main ones, yeah i headcanon the mindshare space time is slowed way down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 06:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18162374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastromeme/pseuds/plastromeme
Summary: They find Sinclair.





	Begin Again

It’s two months after the defeat of Nemesis that they find Robert Sinclair, bleeding out a few clicks from Anvil. It was a fluke that he was even noticed. Miranda and Jodie had been a part of the ongoing-cleaning crew from the attack so long ago, short staffed as Anvil was, and made good work of their fighting mecha.

 

Miranda had first spotted Sinclair and, upon seeing his Union getup, quickly took aim. “Union soldier going towards Anvil from the South, hasn’t spotted the cleaning crew yet.” She said swiftly and clearly into the comm system.

 

“Kill him and get it over with,” Jodie replied as he set down the junk he was carrying, the _we can’t take any more risks_ left unsaid.

 

Ignoring him, Miranda left the mecha as quietly as she could, drawing a handgun and stalking towards the presumed Union soldier. It was as she was aiming at the back of his head, ready to give off orders, that he collapsed. It wasn’t until she turned him with her foot, saw the blood gathered on the ground and a face she recognized from the first time she saw Chase, that she knew who this was.

 

She placed a hand to her ear. “Jodie, we have a problem.”

 

\---

 

They placed Sinclair into the same medical bay one Leon August lay, still brain dead to the world. “We’ll be taking him to a remote medical facility,” Colonel Marin had said, without a falter in her voice to indicate she had lied to the gen:LOCK program. The truth was was that the medical facility was nothing more than a renovated basement at Anvil, that allowed no visitors and had a doctor that had a side room to live in.

 

It was a medical room for well-kept secrets.

 

Sinclair was chained in handcuffs on both wrists across the round room from Leon. The former couldn’t be trusted just yet and the rest of the Anvil facility couldn’t know until Colonel Marin knew what she was dealing with.

 

It was there, nearly a week and a simple surgery after the fact, that Sinclair woke up to her at the foot of his bed.

 

It was then that the interrogating process, to make sure he was the _real_ Sinclair, began.

 

\---

 

“You ‘ave to let us see ‘im!” were the first words out of Cammie’s mouth as her and her fellow gen:LOCKs greet Colonel Marin.

 

Said colonel looked at her disapprovingly. “I do not _have_ to do anything.”

 

Cammie opened her mouth to argue more, but Chase held up a hand to speak. “Are we sure he’s the real deal?”

 

Colonel Marin nodded gravely. “Yes.”

 

\---

 

“Hey,” Sinclair said as the gen:Lock team surrounded him. He’d just left the elevator. He was deemed healthy and ready for Holon training.

 

“Are you ready for the gen:Lock initiative, Sinclair?” Chase asked.

 

He nodded firmly. “But if we’re going to do this, you’ve _got_ to call me Robert.”

 

Cammie grinned. “Okay, _Rob_.”

 

“Good enough for me,” he replied, following the others to the lab.

 

\---

 

“You’ll feel a pull at the back of your mind, something you’ve never felt before,” Chase started to recite from memory as Robert settled down.

 

Robert himself closed his eyes. He could feel _something_ at the back of his mind, and if he concentrated just right…

 

His consciousness got _yanked_ from his body, and he was suddenly floating in an empty, black space with only himself ( _himself??_ ) as a source of light. He looked around, trying to push down the fear that something had gone wrong. The others had done this a million times, why would he be any different?

 

(He refused to entertain the thought that his luck was just _that_ bad, that he’d managed to get captured by the Union, cloned, found out as a spy, and nearly died trying to get to Anvil.)

 

He looked around, and, surprisingly, found someone else there. He was in a Strider suit much like Robert’s own (plain, ready to be designed) and had awfully messy brown hair.

 

“Who are you?” Robert asked.

 

The man jumped, a wild look in his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for months. “How are you here,” he gave instead of an answer.

 

“I’m just… trying to get into that mecha-holon thing…?”

 

“Oh.” Was all the man said, before taking a step closer. “Sorry, I haven’t seen anyone in a… _very_ long time.” He held a hand out to shake. “Lieutenant Leon August,” he introduced himself.

 

Robert cautiously shook his hand. “Robert Sinclair,” he returned the favour. He looked around the place they were in, but there wasn’t much to look at. It was all just… black.

 

“I’d offer you a seat, but, well…” Leon gestured around.

 

“Heh,” Robert huffed, before the awkward silence continued.

 

Leon started looking a little desperate, so Robert started talking. Not about much, just the weather and the cities the gen:Lock crew have won back from the Union. It seemed bit by bit that Leon calmed down until they were both sitting (as much as one _can_ sit when there is no ground), exchanging small stories.

 

A pull less frantic than the one that brought him here started to appear, and he frowned. “I feel like--?” He started, before his vision flooded black and he woke up 4 stories tall.

 

(No one mentioned how he was gone for at least an hour, so he didn’t talk about the strange man he met.)

 

\---

 

The next time they trained, the very next day, Robert was more gently pulled back into the ‘floaty-talk’ space, as he dubbed it. Leon perked right up from whatever gloomy mood he was in, and immediately started to share stories about his days as a Strider pilot.

 

“That wasn’t _all_ ,” he continued as Robert wheezed with laughter. “The cadet’s system glitched so that it would loop the entire system again, and he nearly quit right then and there. Then, Jodie--”

 

He didn’t get to hear what Jodie did or said, as the mindlink happened and pulled him into his holon suit.

 

\---

 

It happened every time he went to his suit, whether for training or on the field battles. He would appear in the talk space, talk with Leon about anything each had on their mind at the moment, and after about an hour, Robert would go into his mecha.

 

He started to think he might have made a friend in this guy.

 

(He refused to think about the weight in his chest, the one who wanted more.)

 

\---

 

It’s the battle for Memphis, and the holon suits were really struggling. Robert reached inside himself, and reached the talk space by command, seeing the others fight brilliantly, working on threats away from each other. He spotted Leon, and held out a hand as the weight dropped to his stomach.

 

They danced to a slow waltz, and his mind was split between his holon suit doing the most graceful yet calculated moves he’d ever done and staring into deep blue eyes. He spinned Leon twice before letting him go, and they both smiled softly at each other.

 

(The weight disappeared, and he tried not to think about how it would come back full force later.)

 

When the battle was over, Cammie and Migas wanted to look at his holon suit. While not critical to that mission, he had nearly hit checkout time, and they wanted to know why. He didn’t tell them about Leon.

 

(That night, he dreamt of a lonely young man with brown hair and an open sky with a vast galaxy above them. The weight settled quickly back in his chest as he woke up in the morning.)

 

\---

 

It was a while before the next big battle, which was taking the West portion of Nashville. Robert uploaded into his suit, and ended up in the talk space. It ended up being a normal chat, until…

 

Leon moved closer, and gave him a small uncertain kiss. As they pulled away, and Robert tried to kiss him again, his mind pulled and he fighting the Union.

 

(If he fought a little better and seemed more confident, no one mentioned it.)

  


\---

 

“Val?” Robert called as they were all leaving for training.

 

Val looked over their shoulder and, upon seeing him waiting, paused in their stride. “What is it?” They asked.

 

He waited until the others had left the room, before explaining his situation. “You know that place where we mindshare? Do you ever… see someone who doesn’t… who isn’t one of us?”

 

“Not since Nemesis,” they told him. “Who do you see?”

 

“Someone who goes by the name Leon August,” he said.

 

Val’s eyes widen, and they grab him by the arm, all but dragging him out the door. “You need to tell the others,” was all they said.

 

And, when the two met up with the others, he did.

 

\---

 

Leon considered himself patient and sure of himself, as any good pilot should be. However, this dark place he’d called hell for however long he’d been there, was testing his patience, just as the lack of visits from Robert was weighing down on his confidence. It shouldn’t, he knew this, but it was hard not to. After the battle, after the _kiss_ , Robert hadn’t shown up _once_.

 

It was kind of a gut-wrenching feeling he hadn’t felt since his awkward teenage years.

 

It was as he was contemplating his whole existence that he felt it. That little… _pull_ in the back of his mind that got him into this mess had suddenly flared up. Without much thought or prompting, he latched onto that link, and everything flashed blue and white, and then finally… black.

 

His eyes felt heavy in a way they hadn’t since his terrible college sleeping habit days, and he struggled to open them before he realized what was going on. He opened his eyes in a flash, taking a couple minutes to blink at the bright lights. As he looked around, he saw the white walls of the medical bay.

 

He looked around, met Colonel Marin’s eyes, and she smiled softly.

 

\---

 

After Robert had told the others about Leon, they all put their heads together to uncover a solution to bringing him back. It took nearly a month (with no attacks, thankfully, now that the Union was pushed nearly to the East coast) for them all to come to an agreement on a solution. They would put Leon’s body back into a pod and, instead of downloading him to a mecha, they would force an upload that, hopefully, wouldn’t fry his brain completely.

 

To put it simply, it worked. However, the team wasn’t allowed to see him, since he had to get used to having a body again after not having one for _months_ on end. Robert, of course, was pretty anxious, and it leaked constantly into battles, making more collateral mistakes than usual.

 

It took two weeks for Leon to be deemed as visitor ready, but Robert and his team didn’t know until they found Leon waiting for them after their most recent training session.

 

His eyes lit up as they met Robert’s, and he smiled gently. “Hey,” he said.

 

“Hey yourself,” Robert breathed out. He took the steps necessary to reach the other, gripped him by the shirt, and pulled him into a deep kiss.

  
“‘ow about ‘ _’ey we’re still in ‘ere_ ,’” Cammie called out as the other gen:Locks left the room and Kazu wolf-whistled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I Honestly cannot wait for more of this show (and more of Sinclair and Leon tbh....). Anyways, inspired by my best friend Leon's art:  
> http://willbirkins.tumblr.com/post/183549117236/rt-hire-me-i-have-ideas


End file.
